Quotes of the day

posted at 8:21 pm on August 8, 2014 by Allahpundit

In sending warplanes back into the skies over Iraq, President Obama on Thursday night found himself exactly where he did not want to be. Hoping to end the war in Iraq, Mr. Obama became the fourth president in a row to order military action in that graveyard of American ambition…

“This is a slippery slope if I ever saw one,” said Phyllis Bennis, a scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, a research organization for peace activists. “Whatever else we may have learned from the president’s ‘dumb war,’ it should be eminently clear that we cannot bomb Islamist extremists into submission or disappearance. Every bomb recruits more supporters.”…

To some, this is a crisis Mr. Obama brought on himself by not trying harder to leave a residual force behind at the end of 2011 and neglecting to recognize the growing threat as the civil war in Syria next door increasingly spilled over into Iraq. Some argued that a virtual state under ISIS control posed more than the humanitarian threat Mr. Obama seemed to be focused on…

ISIS are fast-track Nazis. No messing about with a few property restrictions and intermarriage laws as a little light warm-up: They’re only in the business of “final solutions”, and they start on Day One and don’t quit until the last Christian and Yazidi is dead or fled. As I’ve often remarked about today’s exhaustively cleansed Maghreb, Levant and Araby, Islam is king on a field of corpses. But pikers like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Baathists, the House of Saud take their time. ISIS are shooting for the Guinness Book of Records.

***

For sheer, brutal efficiency, ISIL is several steps above Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram or even the Taliban. The closest analog I can think of is the Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian movement that killed more than two million people in the mid-1970s. There was a reminder of those horrors this week, when two top Khmer Rouge leaders were finally sentenced for their crimes. In their remorseless advance through eastern Syria and northern Iraq, ISIL’s fighters have demonstrated the same iron will and discipline that Khmer Rouge deployed against the Cambodian army and the Cambodian people. In territory Al-Baghdadi controls, he uses the same tactics of intimidation and public punishment that Pol Pot used to cow his fellow Cambodians.

In its appetite for genocide, ISIL seems to borrow from Adolf Hitler’s Nazis. It, too, has identified for extermination entire categories of people. Its fighters have systematically rounded up groups of “unbelievers”—and remember, that can mean anybody, including their fellow Sunnis—and slaughtered them in a manner Heinrich Himmler would have approved of. If the disturbing photographs (and be warned, they are very disturbing) in this Washington Post story were in grainy black-and-white, they could have come from a Nazi death camp. And online videos of these mass killings clearly show miss the zealous glee with which the executioners go about the work.

That, then, is the nature of the monster on which the US is finally turning its guns. It will not die easily.

***

[T]he Islamic State has very simply put together a smarter offensive plan. Its push toward Irbil is believed by many not to be a move to take that city but to force the peshmerga to defend its capital, allowing the Islamic State to harden its grip on places nearby it’s more interesting in holding.

In Sunni-dominated Iraqi cities like Mosul and Fallujah, the Islamic State successfully co-opted or intimidated residents, allowing its forces to move in and take over. In Kurdish-defended areas, it’s forced the peshmerga to defend multiple locations along the lengthy frontier.

The Kurds have made no secret of their limitations. They have repeatedly asked the United States for help.

***

The enemy cannot be negotiated with. The Islamic State is rational by its own reasoning, but psychotic by standards of international law and justice. It wants to create a caliphate across the region and its fighters are not only prepared to die for it but would consider having a bomb dropped on them to be an honour. There is no Bashar al-Assad to contain with sanctions, no Pinochet to extradite and try. These people cannot be talked to, so military action is the only effective response. Frankly, they would respect that.

The objective is clear. Obama has stated that the action is limited to containing the spread of the Islamic State and ensuring that it does not drive into the Kurdish homeland or threaten Baghdad. This is not the beginning of one of those “nation building” exercises that rolls on for years. It is an immediate response to an immediate problem that does not bind the West into any further action. It also includes dropping food and water for refugees – something that, obviously, no one would oppose.

The West has a responsibility to do something. And so we return to the point above about the legacy of Iraq. Only a cruel amnesiac would look at what is happening to the Iraq’s religious minorities and say, “This has nothing to do with us.” It is everything to do with us.

***

Even for the more dovish among us, it is hard to make a good moral case against intervening to protect the Yazidis. Who can say the cause is not just? Reports suggest this is a genocide. Everybody agrees that ISIS (or IS) are vile, and that we should not treat them as a nation state – whatever they may say they are. Finally, having spent over a decade bungling its foreign policy, America has a war worth fighting…

If I were an Iraqi, I’d hardly be comforted by that statement – given America’s record in Mesopotamia. But the US is chiefly responsible for the current state of Iraq – you broke it, you fix it etc – and Obama’s move last night recognised that. Plus, as Rod Dreher puts it, ISIS needs killin’.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, who voted against authorizing the war in Iraq in 2002, said he backed Obama’s decision and said the reasons the president outlined for the airstrikes are “surely sufficient.”

And Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, said she “strongly” supports Obama’s authorization for airstrikes — warning that ISIL was a “terrorist army” that was quickly broadening its influence in the region.

“It takes an army to defeat an army, and I believe that we either confront ISIL now or we will be forced to deal with an even stronger enemy in the future,” she said. “Inaction is no longer an option.”

***

Americans have so far been deeply ambivalent toward further military action in Iraq. A June Washington Post-ABC News poll found fewer than half, 45 percent, supported launching airstrikes against Sunni extremists in the country, and only 30 percent supported deploying ground troops. Separate surveys found majorities believing the U.S. does not have a responsibility to stop violence in the country…

Prevention of genocide and starvation is among the most potent arguments Obama could make for getting involved in Iraq. When a 2012 survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs asked Americans under what circumstances they would favor deploying U.S. troops, stopping a government from killing its own citizens topped the list with 70 percent in favor. In Iraq, Sunni extremist groups — not the government — are responsible for the killings, but the prevention of certain death is a great motivating factor nonetheless.

***

Obama stood by and watched as more territory fell to these vermin. He watched as thousands upon thousands of innocents were raped, tortured, and butchered. He watched as cultural treasures were destroyed, as Christians were slaughtered, as a patently obvious humanitarian and security crisis was unfolding right before his eyes. Still, other than to send in a very limited number of American “advisers,” Obama did next to nothing.

And now he wants to rescue the thousands from their mountaintop, while protecting American personnel as well? Well, he’s right to do so now. But he should have done so at least eight weeks ago. The people are starving on the mountain because Barack Obama allowed their homes, their towns, to be destroyed. They are there because the man who tried last night to sound like Mr. Tough Guy dithered for so many weeks like Hamlet on an endless-replay loop.

What moral clarity, pray tell, exists now that didn’t exist in June? What military advantages do we have now that we didn’t have then? (Obviously, we actually have fewer now.) What diplomatic gains have we achieved?

***

When Outnumbered ringleader Harris Faulkner noted that the president had focused on the little known Yazidis, who have not suffered as many casualties at the hands of ISIL as have Christians, Kirsten Powers, usually the most liberal of the panelists, tore the president a new one:

“He has not uttered the word ‘Christian,’ and now suddenly he throws it in with the Yazidis,” Powers said. “We’re not doing any airdrops to the Christians, who are refugees in the Kurdish region. [Virginia Congressman Frank] Wolf has taken to the floor, I think, seven days in a row now, pleading with the administration: Please help these people. They need humanitarian aid; they need drinking water. They have nothing. They’ve lost their homes; they’ve lost everything. The White House has done nothing; they’ve said nothing. And then the president goes on and goes into quite a lot of detail about the Yazidis, and never really gets into the specifics about Christians. I mean, it’s really unbelievable, and he has no right to invoke humantiarianism, because he is not a humanitarian president. A humanitarian president does not sit quietly by, while hundreds of thousands of Christians in Iraq [are uprooted or killed]– forget about the rest of the Middle East — and doesn’t say a word.”

***

If the Islamic State were to take over Erbil, they would endanger Iraq’s oil production and, by extension, global access to oil. Prices would surge at a time when Europe, which buys oil from Iraq, has still not escaped the global recession. Oil prices have already risen in response to the Islamic State’s threat to Erbil, and on Thursday, American oil companies Chevron and Exxon Mobile began evacuating their personnel from Kurdistan. But oil traders are predicting that American intervention could halt the rise. “In essence we find U.S. air strikes more bearish than bullish for oil as the act finally draws a line for IS and reinforces both the stability in south Iraq and in Kurdistan,” Oliver Jakob, a Swiss oil analyst, told Reuters…

The United States should worry about the global oil supply. It is important for global economic and political stability. And having a significant chunk of it fall into the hands of a group like the Islamic State should certainly be a concern. But if Obama is worried about the world’s oil supply, then he should say so forthrightly and not leave himself in a position where he will be unable to justify or explain further intervention after the airdrops to the Yazidis are completed. And the administration should also have a plan for making sure that in sending out the Air Force, it will actually end a dire threat to Iraq’s oil production and put Iraq back on its feet. In Libya, the U.S. and its partners succeeded in getting rid of Muammar Qaddafi, but not in resolving the country’s humanitarian crisis or in keeping its oil flowing. Oil production has plummeted as Libya has been plunged into anarchy after Qaddafi’s fall. The challenge in Erbil and Iraq is even more daunting.

1. ISIS will destroy itself. We don’t have to stamp out ISIS, because its growth is inherently limited. It picks too many fights and alienates too many people. It has already taken on the Iraqi army, the Kurds, the Turks, Iraqi Baathists, and many Iraqi Sunnis. Now it’s going head to head against Syria’s armed forces. As if that weren’t enough, ISIS went into Lebanon this week. ISIS also antagonizes civilians in its territory. People in Mosul are rebelling against its oppression. It won’t last…

3. We’re doing what only we can do. Lots of countries and Iraqi factions have a stake in stopping ISIS. But some tasks are beyond their power. Saving 40,000 people on a mountain seems to be one of those tasks. In his speech last night, Obama said the U.S. should step in when it has a mandate from the host government and “when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre.” Unique is an important caveat. It means we’ll stick to doing what others can’t do…

8. Some force now means less force later. You can’t deliver humanitarian aid in a war zone without military support. The cargo planes we use to drop food and medicine fly low and slow. If one of them is shot down, imagine the escalation. To forestall that scenario, we’re sending limited air power up front, in the form of fighter escorts. Good move.

***

While U.S. airstrikes and drops of supplies may prevent the terrorist forces from massacring the Yazidi sect or toppling the pro-Western regime in Kurdistan, Mr. Obama lacks a plausible plan for addressing the larger threat posed by the Islamic State. In recent weeks, a host of senior U.S. officials have described the danger in hair-curling terms: The Islamic State forces, which have captured large numbers of U.S.-supplied heavy weapons, threaten not only the Iraqi and Kurdish governments, but also Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. With hundreds of Western recruits, they have the ambition and capability to launch attacks against targets in Europe and the United States.

Yet by the White House’s own account, the measures ordered by Mr. Obama are not intended to defeat the Islamic State or even to stop its bloody advances in most of the region…

A former Special Forces officer and Iraq veteran described how the troops currently on the ground, some 800 elite special operations soldiers, could impact the battle: “If SOF [special operations forces] advisors moved to the front, they would be able to help organize and plan the maneuver of Peshmerga, provide up-to-the-minute intelligence to protect line units, and give greater speed and fidelity to close air support. It would also give a tremendous morale boost to Peshmerga units under fire.”

That could be a great boon to the Peshmerga, but not without costs. Moving U.S. special operations forces onto the battlefield, even as advisors, “greatly raises the profile of American involvement and will eventually lead to highly visible American casualties,” according to the Special Forces veteran.

During a conference call with a National Security Council expert yesterday, a reporter asked why this mission to protect the Kurds and Yazidis, and the Americans in Erbil, was different from the chaos in Libya, where we evacuated our embassy staff from Tripoli. The answer should be obvious: the chaos in Libya is a civil war among competing tribes. It is part of a regional struggle to redraw the straight lines on the maps that were drawn by Europeans 100 years ago. It will be a bloody fight for a generation and, in most cases, will be peripheral to our national interests. But when a terrorist group establishes an actual state, as seems to be the case with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, it is an entirely different story. The world cannot tolerate a safe haven from which attacks can be launched against religious minorities, as is now happening, or against other countries (including the US)–which is the stated intent of the ISIS leadership. That is why we took action against the Taliban government in Afghanistan 13 years ago. The urgency is no less now–and, indeed, is perhaps greater, given the honed strength of this extremely well-armed and well-funded terrorist organization.

Blowback

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B9,
Oh, the weather sounds miserable there. Sorry you’re under the weather too. Hang in there babe.
It’s been in the low 100′s with the nights not cooling off as low as I’m use to. With that said, tonight is the first night it has cooled off. I hope a trend follows. May head up to the Sierras or the coast for droppin in a week or two. Gotta get Sis settled first.

Cat,
I’m originally from the Bay Area and there aren’t a lot of conservative voices there. Beyond the Bay Area there’s a nice mix and in some places a little more Republican minded than others. I do know that with recent events more and more people are speaking up where I live.

Please eliminate the stupid auto-play ads. They don’t even work right! 30 minutes on a page and then it comes on? Come on! I wish the hell Salem would sell all their blogs. They drag down everything they touch.

Morning COL and soon sleepy head HonestLib,
It’s still dark here and I’m enjoying the breezes. I don’t want to think of the heat coming my way. Maybe I can sleep through it. Miss COL, would like to see your paintings. Sends snaps my way?
HonestLib, read about your daughter wanting to work, contribute. That’s a good thing. I started earning money at 14 to save towards six months of car insurance, then saved for a car. First car was a ’64 VW (bought in ’73). Daughter wants to buy a VW now… saw one advertised ’65 for $7,000. Dang.

In dithering, in doing half-work, in wanting to be out and in at the same time in Iraq, Barack Obama now has what he has sought: LBJ’s Vietnam.

The major difference is that in this case he walked away from the Status of Forces Agreement and left the war to continue while pulling everyone out. If he had simply signed up to the agreement, kept US forces in Iraq to train and properly arm its military and help locals to defend themselves in an orderly fashion, then we would not have ISIS in Iraq.

Barack Obama could have ended the war and brought peace.

The Lightbringer preferred war, instead, and now has the war he wished to have.

Unable to make peace, he brings war.

Unable to fight war, he brings disaster.

How many Christians, Yezidi and Muslims who want no part of ISIS must be exterminated before President Obama realizes that their blood is on his hands? He has helped ARM the ISIS forces in Syria and then botched that so that they spread. Now they threaten the region and his build-down of US forces means that he CANNOT properly respond and Europe won’t respond without US backing. Libya is his doing. Arming ISIS is his doing. Building down US forces is his doing. Not bringing peace is his doing.

And yet the Left CHEERED at all of this and now wants to deny that their backing of this man has no part in his failures. Watch how the Left now tries to flee Lyndon Johnson Obama. Their high words and morals are now shining through the clouds and a dark sun is now visible and they don’t want to bask in the rays of that which they sought.

Keep your breathing calm.

Steady your heart rate.

Keep your eye on the target.

Being civil means doing one’s duty and it is an honor and obligation, both to maintain civilization against those bringing it down. It is not a nice duty nor a pleasant duty, but it is a necessary one.

Send aid and arms to the Christians in Iraq.

Send aid, arms, heavy equipment and spotters to the Kurds so that their ground forces are bolstered and our air forces can destroy the enemy with their help.

Send aid to the Yezidis who are pacifists in the extreme… you may not understand or even like their religion, but what of it? They harm none and seek only to distract evil so good may have space to move. I think that is somewhat wrong-headed, yes, but you can’t say we don’t need that at this present moment, now, can you?

If President Obama cannot do these things, these simple things, that ARE within his powers given the CAUF that is still out there for Iraq, then the world will burn and quickly, not slowly, as barbarism begins to engulf the globe. It will also mark him as the return of LBJ who did likewise over and over, and refused to win by taking ground and eliminating the enemy. After he left his friends in Congress left those who supported the US to hang out and be killed once the US left under Nixon. The chaos could only roll out to the sea there… here it won’t stop until it overwhelms the globe as the sea is no barrier to this at all.

NICE JOB of providing in depth coverage of this issue. I read the whole thing and now I have no questions about what is happening in Iraq, what could happen, what may need to happen, why it might work and might not, and what the risks are. Thanks, it’s posts like these that help people get a grasp of difficult situations without having to hunt down all the different articles it takes to put this synopsis together. This is where Hotair stands out over and above the rest of the bloggers.

Good morning cat and Rhonda and whoever is still up. 84 today. Don’t know about rain. I’m going to look at a possible car to buy today.

crankyoldlady on August 9, 2014 at 5:01 AM

Morning COL and 89F, 90%+ humidity, rain and thunderstorms. Can’t remember the last time I was the only one home. Not much into peace and quite. What kind of auto? Hope you are well and just have a trip to Kroger and then beer time. If I am lucky, hope to catch you later on.

Our dear leader isn’t worried about the oil, Christians or the world. He’s got windmills and sunshine on his mind. Somehow, since all his grand plans don’t seem to be exactly working out, it’s possible that he’s losing focus on what he was going to do next to the US. This is why he gets and looks so mad when he has to do something against his principles like sending bombers over ISIS. Isn’t it amazing how he can juggle some great world disaster like this, the border, our economy, the vets and the debt, all to a political advantage and remain at 40% approval.

President Obama is in a trap of his own making. It started with his Speech to the Muslim World at the University of Cairo, shorty after his first Inauguration as President, in which he sounded like a subservient dhimmi.

“This is a slippery slope if I ever saw one,” said Phyllis Bennis, a scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, a research organization for peace activists. “Whatever else we may have learned from the president’s ‘dumb war,’ it should be eminently clear that we cannot bomb Islamist extremists into submission or disappearance. Every bomb recruits more supporters.”…

Morning Bmore, long time no yack. Hope you are well and dry. Family is visiting Auburn University for a recruiting visit. Just me and the son. Thinking about The Cheetah, but the Clermount Lounge is more up to me speed at my age! Nah, will just stay home.

Y’all are just such wonderful folks !!
Hoping Dil had a peaceful night, and while I was praying for you, Dil, a scripture came to mind, so I looked it up (again).
I was INSTANTLY reminded of one lesson He’d used that verse to teach me ….

1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Sounds sweet and comforting, that he cares about you/us, yes ??
WELL .. That’s how I’d always considered it.

UNTIL He kept saying ‘read that again’ .. And I probably did 4 or 5 times, before the revelation hit me so deeply that I actually LOL .. right there in my hospital bed, after drs had removed my cancerous left kidney and half of my bladder.
I actually thought that my praying and reciting my fears and questions before Him WAS casting my anxiety upon Him. Sounds right and logical, yes ??
‘Read that again’. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

He cares for me. (Ok, good)
He cares for me. (Yeah, thanks)
OMG !!
He cares FOR me !!!
He DOES the caring, so I don’t have to !!!

From that moment on, I realized that if I remembered to (took some practice) actually GIVE Him my cares, they were instantly lifted, and I could live my life free from any major burdens !
Trust me, I tested Him a lot over that one, and He never failed….
“Here I go, again, Lord, spinning in turmoil .. HERE !! YOU care about this, cuz I’ve got a family to care for, and these concerns just manage to paralyze me, and I’m no good to anyone, let alone myself !!”

Good morning again,
Great write ups aJacksonian and KJ. Always thoughtful and managing t remind us what’s “out there.”
Miss Pambi, so happy you are still with us after what you’ve been through.
Miss COL, beautiful art work. Thank you for sending them my way.
You and so many others bring such wonderful gifts and talent here.
Diluculo, hope your day has started with a brighter outlook. You are loved by God and us.
Thanks to all and blessings.

Yep, got some sleep last night. Yep, the problems started right away too once I got up. Well, at least sleep was quiet. I don’t know fully what the day has in store, I sure hope it doesn’t have as much nonsense as yesterday did. Judging from what my wife says on the phone it probably will have some degree of nonsense to it.

Pambi, I’ll try. I’m not exactly sure how to cast my anxieties anywhere, it sounds good to me though. I’d love to not have anxieties eating away at my guts. I’ll try.

What’s the dill…pickle? Chuckle, ain’t said that since I was 10. Sheesh, I don’t remember 10; or even……last night for that matter. Pretty sure I asked Newtie Pootie to marry me or something. SOP for me when you mix chicks with beer. Since I wear sweater vests and have sideburns like Elvis, ain’t like me gots to worry about getting a yes anyway.

Hope your days goes well and you are on the minds of many. Cold beer and me guitar are calling. Yak later is you are posting and I ain’t passed out.

That’s definitely a keeper, Cozmo! How long did that take you to build?

Newtie and the Beauty on August 8, 2014 at 11:27 PM

Two and a half years from resizing the plans to the final coat of lacquer on the deck. I loved most of it. Except running the fiber optics, queuing up the sound system and running the lines for the bilge pump.